Staging (or, how to make it look like you have more taste than you actually do)
Typical suggestions include repainting (or re-wallpapering) in neutral colors, cleaning or replacing carpeting, and essentially removing everything that makes the house look like yours rather than a model home. (Unless your place looks like a model home, in which case -- why are you wasting your time reading home staging tips?)
I recently interviewed Tressa Manna, a Realtor with ReMax Sails in Baltimore, but wasn't able to fit her thoughts on staging into the home-sales story I was working on. Now seems like an opportune time to share.
In general, "less is better," she said. The point is to let buyers "be able to envision their own possessions in the property.”
Can you stage a place that isn't vacant, I asked?
“It’s difficult to stage an occupied home because their goods are there," Manna said. "If they don’t have someplace to put their items, we usually just ask them to keep their house as streamlined as possible. Remove clutter, remove personal pictures, take things off the refrigerator, knickknacks -- put them in closets, put them in boxes. Have the house almost look like no one lives in it."
Oh, and speaking of model-home homes:
"We have a listing now just north of Patterson Park and the sellers have fantastic taste, and people come in and ask, 'Does someone live here or is it staged?'" she said. "So that’s a compliment to the seller.”
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